Try Again
by Marie Phantom
Summary: When all you know has been turned around and you are left in unfamiliar circumstances, how do you cope, and what do you do?


Title: Try Again.

Pairing: Dan/Laurie/Rorschach

Rating: PG13

Summary: When all you know has been turned around and you are left in unfamiliar circumstances, how do you cope, and what do you do?

A/N: Please be kind. I have never done this before. This is my favourite pairing after Dan/Rorschach. I hope that I have done then justice.

The wail that broke the still air in the early hours of the morning was not welcome, but it was dealt with with the same efficiency that all other cries for food and attention had been dealt with before. It was Walters' turn that night, and he crawled out of the comfortable tangle that was Laurie and Dan to deal with the intruder to his peaceful sleep.

He entered the room at the end of the hallway, his blue eyes bleary but already seeking out the small hand that waved about above the crib where the rest of the body lay. Walter checked to see whether the other occupant of the room had woken up, and he grimaced when two sleepy brown eyes peered back at him.

"Baby awake?" the little boy asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and yawning.

"Yes. Go back to sleep." Walter whispered, his normally gravelly voice made even hoarser by lack of sleep and early morning risings. When he was younger, and Rorschach had yet to take over, he could go up to three days without sleep.

But now he was a father, and he had other priorities.

The little boy, Hollis Edward ("he may have been a bastard and a rapist, but he was still my father, and I kind of want to honour him, you know?") nodded and lay back down on his small bed, his eyes already dropping. Walter turned back to the baby and picked her up, grimacing slightly at the wet nappy and the smell emanating from it. The baby whimpered and turned her small head onto Walters shoulder, lips puckering as they sought out a nipple. Although she was still being breast-fed, she was now being weaned onto formula, and so Walter carried her to the kitchen, jiggling her softly to keep her quite.

Once there, he heated up some milk whilst stroking Charlie's soft downy hair.

Charlie, or Charlotte Blaire, was the second child of Sam and Sandra Hollis, , whose were a respectable middle aged couple who lived in Washington. Sam Hollis was a car salesman, who specialised in broken down cars and was a whiz at fixing just about anything. Sandra Hollis worked in the local hospital and was a beautiful example that women could grow older gracefully. They lived in their suburban house with a formally homeless man, Michael Donovan, whom their had rescued from New York when they escaped from Dr Manhattans explosion.

Every one agreed that Donovan was very strange, and that it was best not to mention the great philanthropist Adrian Veidt around him. No one questioned his badly dyed brown hair, and his thick black glasses which gave him the look of an irritated blue bottle fly.

The reality however was very different. Dan and Laurie had quickly cobbled together was money they had to purchase fake identities, hair dye and a marriage certificate while Walter (it was Walter now, Rorschach was gone), struggled to comprehend how on _earth_ he had compromised with _Laurie_ of all things. Before they knew it, Daniel Drieberg, Laurie Juspeczyk and Walter Kovacs had disappeared, and their knew identities had become their reality.

Moving to Washington had been fine, moving in with the new couple had been fine, even sharing living space with Laurie had been acceptable. But it had worn on his already shattered nerves to see her touch Dan so casually, brushing her hand up his arm and smiling at him from across the room. Walter knew that they were married, had occasionally heard them make love in the room next to his, whilst he huddled under the duvet and shivered with disgust and longing. But it was getting harder and harder for him to deny his attraction to Dan when he was living so close.

The crunch had come when Laurie had walked in to the shower room whilst Walter was still in there, dealing with his need in the quickest and most efficient way possible. She had heard him groan out Dan's name, had seen him shudder with remorse and grief, and instead or lording it over his head, she had climbed into the shower with him and hugged him, whispering in his ear "I know Walter, _I know_."

After that, it had seemed ridiculously easy to get Walter into their bed. Once Laurie had grilled Dan over whether or not he saw Walter as a friend or something more, and Walter had been assured countless times that "no, this is _not _wrong, you love Dan and I'm okay with that, no, that room if freezing anyway, I've never been one to look too closely in Christian doctrine anyway" Walter had spent the nights following curled in between an and Laurie, with her pressing him against Dans' solid chest.

And that should have been okay. They could have worked with that, had Dan not got Laurie knocked up.

"One _sodding _condom Dan! One time you didn't think and now look!" Laurie had shrieked, flinging the pregnancy test at Dan whilst he looked at Lauries stomach and tried not to imagine it swelling with life.

"Laurie, look, I'm sorry. But we have solid lives here, and Adrian knows were not going to screw this up for him." Dan pleaded with her, wringing his hands and looking anxiously at her.

Her anger spent, Laurie had tearfully slumped down at the kitchen table and assured Dan that she knew she was going to keep it.

"I may have been a mask, and a trained killer, but even I can't kill something this helpless."

This assurance had not helped Walter, who only saw images of a slaughtered and butchered girl whenever he looked at Laurie's expanding waistline. He had retreated back to the guest room and had taken to spending as little time with Dan and Laurie as possible, saying nothing but a mumbled "Happy for you" whenever he came into contact with both.

Dan had napped him out of it when he had cornered Walter and verbally chewed him out, shouting "You are hurting me, you are hurting Laurie, and if you want to be part of this family then get in that room and tell Laurie you are sorry for ignoring her!"

"Your baby. Am intruding."

"Bloody hell Walter, there is not me and Laurie, there is _us_, this threesome, us altogether. Accept it and make an effort, or move out. This baby is as much yours as it is ours, so pull your weight."

When Hollis was born, it was Daniel holding Lauries hand, whilst Walter held the small bundle of his son, who opened his eyes sleepily at him, yawned and then went to sleep. Even thought the baby was biologically Daniel's, Walter was as much his father as Dan.

All was well with the rather dysfunctional family for the next couple of years. Laurie was 'Mom', Dan was 'Dad' and Walter was 'Papa', although when it came to school they knew young Hollis was going to have to exclude 'Papa' from discussions and use 'Michael' instead. It was going to be difficult enough to explain the fact that the boy had the same last name as his first name without explaining that he had two fathers.

However, when Laurie fell pregnant again, they simply adjusted as they had done before. Hollis was informed and he was delighted to be a big brother, Walter mentally prepared himself for a new arrival and Dan was overjoyed to be a father again. This peace was upended by the fact that the baby was born with piercing blue eyes, Laurie's distinctive beauty mark and soft red hair, the same fiery shade as Walter's.

Walters' world was suddenly turned on its head. It was all very well being a surrogate father to Dan's child, but suddenly he was a father all by himself. He had a proper responsibility.

At first, he spent a lot of time watching the baby girl, called Charlie Blaire at his insistence. He didn't know what to do. This wasn't like with Hollis, this was actually _his _child. Laurie tried to get him to interact with the small girl, but Walter would rather watch from afar.

It was only when the baby opened her eyes and focused on the first time that Walter held her, stroking her soft red hair and smiling slightly at he tiny face. Hollis, who was in the room at the time, looked up from his colouring and caught the rare sight of Papa smiling. He too grinned and went back to his picture of Charlie. Water finally felt completed. He finally had something that he could truly call his own, and like Rorshcach's drive to protect New York, he would be driven to protect his family.

Life in the Hollis household was dysfunctional and unique. Laurie and Water still sniped at each other, although now they would apologise and sleep curled up together. Dan and Laurie still had to persuade Walter that a shower was not something to be distrusted. But somehow, amidst the devastation and terror of a new world, three retired vigilantes had managed to carve out their own piece of heaven.

And finally, Walter could look at his face in a mirror, and smile.


End file.
